The Point Cloud Shape Extraction Plug-in is a point cloud shape extraction solution which allows you to import, load, and extract shape and geometry information from point cloud data in AutoCAD 2011 and a few other AutoCAD 2011 based products. This plug-in allows you to take a point cloud and extract primitive geometry like flat planes, cylinders,l and more from the point clouds points. You can also generate cross section through the point cloud and have the result in splines or plines and then use those to create derivative geometry such as a 2D drawing or perhaps a 3D model.

After you install the Point Cloud Shape Extraction for AutoCAD Plug-in you will have a new Point Cloud Ribbon Tab.

Here I have a point cloud of the Mandalay Bay Arena where we hold Autodesk University.

First I want to zoom into an area that I want to work on and then crop it out of the point cloud to limit the number of points I am working with and improve performance.

Now using the ribbon I can start to select area that are planar or cylindrical and derive geometry from them fairly easily.

I even used a point cloud of a football to explore shape and form using surfaces and meshes built from the splines of a multiple slice of the point cloud. Imagine using an existing building or organic shape to be the base shape of your creation.

Best results are accomplished with the use a high resolution laser scan instead of a loose or low resolution point cloud created from alternate means like photogrammetry.

29 July 2010

I am simply curious who else is using AutoCAD and uses a Mac either at work or home.

If you are a longtime reader of this blog you may have seen the debates in posts and hundreds of comments, surveys, and requests/demands from many users for native Mac solutions when I mentioned we supported Apple Boot Camp and virtualized solutions like Parallels and VMWare Fusion.

I absolutely love my Mac hardware and now have 2 MacBook Pros. I consider myself as a multiple platform gypsy. Yes, I really do believe when I walk into a room with my MacBook Pro aluminum unibody laptop everyone looks at me like I am much more cool, than I really am. After a few years I realized there is no single perfect platform, yet having a Mac and PC allow me to use the best of both.

Question: Have you made the jump to the sexy, shiny, sleek Apple hardware? Why did you switch? Are you running AutoCAD for Windows on your Mac in a virtualized or Boot Camp solution?

Autodesk is adding new native Mac solutions each year and details are always available at http://www.autodesk.com/mac. Autodesk really is platform agnostic from Windows, Linux, Mac, iPhone, and cloud computing. We go where it makes sense from a technology and market standpoint and fulfills our customers needs and requests.

Happy Friday to those on the other side of the International dateline such as Aussies and Kiwis, happy Thursday for us on this side.

They frequently have to build parts for one of a kind collector vehicles in Jay’s collection. With this workflow they can capture geometry of some existing parts with the laser scanning arm and then model and modify the parts in Autodesk Inventor for final machining or print a prototype. The casting forms and core boxes were also modeled in Autodesk Inventor, printed with a Dimension 3-D printer and then finally machined on their CNC mill.

These photos show what they have been working on, a pair of intake Merlin-Weber manifolds for a 1945 Rolls Royce Merlin Aircraft engine.

What Design, Visualization, Technology, CAD, and Hardware Blogs do you read, and why? Worldwide and all languages. Are they customers or users of the software or technology they write about?

What are your top 10 or 20 that in your opinion are the most influential, cutting edge, and a must read?

Please post your favorites from around the world in the comments to this post. I am always looking to make sure I am following and learning from the best out there as well as engaging them for any Autodesk special opportunities like the AU Bloggers Social and more.

Project Neon is now available via Autodesk Labs as a free technology preview. With Project Neon you can render multiple DWG files simultaneously. http://bit.ly/aYXFgL

It is perfect for designers, architects, engineers who have AutoCAD 2010/2011 DWG files in 3D set with materials and lighting requiring rendering. Rendering is one of the most time and system intensive tasks and by using the cloud your machine is freed of that workload and the high-quality, photo-realistic renderings are delivered directly to your own secure online storage. The actual renderings are completed on Autodesk’s own data center and render farm.

Think of Autodesk Homestyler as a free solution to interior design, house deign or remodel on the cloud, lightweight, mobile, nothing to install, you just need a browser and Internet connection not a special operating system. Give it a try as it is a great solution for those needing to do interior design and remodels without having to know a complex CAD software or even install any software on their own machine and did I mention free.

When you get the question from a relative or friend that does not use high end design software “what they should use to remodel their dream home or kitchen or perhaps want to arrange new furniture” you can confidently recommend Homestyler as it is downright simple.

The Autodesk Labs was started as a way to show emerging technologies and get feedback on them to shape their future features and direction. Project Photofly is definitely one of those shining examples of cutting edge photogrammetrytechnology combined with cloud computing with many potential uses but we need your feedback on to help decide where to focus our investment in.

To hijack a phrase from a song “The Future is so bright with this technology, you need shades”. The geek mind can really race and go wild with all of the future possibilities.

Currently it is available in English only currently and relies on a web connection to process the photos using the cloud. This technology preview is for 32bit Windows but will run fine on 64bit. The technology under the hood of this technology preview has evolved with many of the Autodesk core technology and point cloud technology leaders showing a real promise in cloud computing and the automatic point cloud creation complete with point texture splats from a series of photos from normal consumer grade digital cameras.

Here is a simplified workflow without complex terms or deep diving into mathematical algorithms used to take photos and convert them to 3D points.

You take photos based on the Photo Shooting Guidelines then upload them to the cloud which will then process while you wait and send back a point cloud to the Photo Scene Editor (aka Photofly) You can even have it alert you by email when the file is completed if you don’t want to wait around while it process’ the points from the photos. You can even take a known dimension to calibrate the point cloud scene. Calibrated from a known point in the photos will allow you to measure other points in the 3d scene.

Here are two screen captures of early prototype Photofly and the 3D point cloud with splats from some photos I took in Tucson and Philadelphia.

Here is a scan of a small statue I purchased when in the Brazilian Amazon Jungle a few years back. I took just a couple close up photos, imported the photos to PhotoFly and was given the resulting 3D point cloud of the statue and then exported to AutoCAD as DWG giving me a series of points.

Yes, I did take a series of photos with the assistance of Scott Sheppard of Autodesk Labs. A 3D Hurley head in a point cloud was not the intended use for the technology but it was fun and reminded me of people photocopying their face when they first had access to a photocopier.

Capturing the reality as-built for various purposes (renovation, energy analysis, add-on design, etc.) is now becoming possible using your standard digital camera thanks to advanced computer vision technologies developed by Autodesk, called Camera Factory, and now made available through Project Photofly. The project and technology will evolve using a phased approach.

I would imagine down the road in the future we may be able to take photos or video and create accurate point cloud derived geometry such as primitive shapes or objects into a 3D model complete with the textures. It is really quite exciting to me and also means for the modeling or acquisition of existing geometry like a historical building you would not need an army of employees with tape measures to capture the existing dimensional or topology data. Perhaps even combine technology to real-time augmented reality application where you can see the geometry and dimensions on a device or specialized glasses on a walk through during pre or post construction project. The possibilities are wide open and you are seeing a glimmer with Project Photofly.

20 July 2010

The Golden Hammer Award has been given out but once in 21 years and was an award that was given to an Autodesk employee for major 3D work in AutoCAD. To my knowledge only 1 was ever awarded and that was to Scott Heath for implementing a great deal of 3D work in AutoCAD Release 10 according to Autodesk founder John Walker.

Looking at where AutoCAD has come in the past few releases leads me to award one unofficial Golden Hammer to Guillermo Melantoni shared with the entire AutoCAD Team for all of their hard work for the 3D enhancements in AutoCAD 2010 and 2011 such as meshes, procedural surfacing, and so much more. There were also many non 3D features that rocked my geeky CAD world like geometric constraints and parametrics, and lets not forget we now have transparency controlled by both objects and layer properties in AutoCAD 2011. They worked tirelessly with multiple Autodesk product and design teams to better all products and workflows. This was no small accomplishment and took a great deal of research, programming, coordination, coffee, beer, meetings, and long late hours to deliver. There is a still a great deal of that work continuing and will be seen for many future Autodesk product releases. Funny enough AutoCAD 2011 was codename Hammer during development, coincidence?

In celebration of this unofficial Golden Hammer I will buy everyone a beer at the Autodesk University 2010 Beer Bust to occur in roughly 134 days!

19 July 2010

Guest post by Jeff Bartels @JeffBartels. If you would like to publish a guest article on this blog about AutoCAD please email me at shaan@autodesk.com. This is a great way to be seen by over 20,000+ people daily for free. The idea is to share AutoCAD tips that benefit AutoCAD users as well as promote the AutoCAD experts looking for work, consulting, books, promoting their blogs, or more.

Start by visiting your favorite blog, or Twitter page, and look for this icon - This icon means the data on the page is available as an RSS link.

Right-click on the icon and select “Copy Shortcut” from the menu. This action “steals” the link and places it temporarily on your clipboard.

Next, open AutoCAD and click the Communication Center icon (circled in red) at the top right of the interface.

After opening the Communication Center, click the InfoCenter Settings icon (circled in green) to open the InfoCenter Settings dialog box.

Make sure that RSS Feeds is selected on the left side of the dialog box, and click the “Add…” button in the upper right.

When the Add RSS Feed dialog box opens, Right Click in the address bar and select “Paste” from the menu. In the example image, I have pasted the link for Shaan Hurley’s Blog, “Between the Lines”.

Click the Add button, followed by OK to finish. (Repeat these steps for as many additional blogs, or Twitter pages as you like.)

From now on the Communication Center can be a “one-stop-shop” for all of your CAD related blog entries and tweets. To view the latest information, simply open the Communication Center and look beneath the “RSS Feeds” heading. As a bonus, try selecting an entry to be taken directly to the blog, or Twitter page.

Jeff Bartels has been using AutoCAD professionally, and teaching AutoCAD since Release 12. Jeff has authored ten AutoCAD training titles for Lynda.com – www.lynda.com/jeffbartelsYou can follow him on Twitter @JeffBartels where he regularly posts AutoCAD tips and shortcuts.

Thank you Jeff!

Here is a list of Blogs, RSS feeds, and Twitter for other CAD Blogs compiled by Shaan. You can also add RSS feeds to your RSS feedreaders like the Google Reader.

15 July 2010

After receiving feedback from many readers that are blocked from accessing YouTube by their employer or a government based firewall, I will begin posting videos locally for download as well as YouTube.

14 July 2010

I just realized the Between the Lines blog will celebrate it’s 7th continuous blogging year next month in August. A blog is like having a child and no short term commitment. I think this lucky 7 representing millions of readers and thousands of posts and comments deserves something special. I will come up with CAD Campfire where we can all meet around a campfire and celebrate as well as exchange Geeky Technology, Design, CAD, Fishing, Photography, and more.

So would you be interested in joining me in the beautiful Utah wilderness for a weekend? It is free except to get here and the camping gear to support your level of comfort. I will be in a sleeping bag in a canvas tent if I make it to bed.I will provide some gear, some campfire cooking expertise, photography trekking, fishing lies, the wilderness location complete with real wild animals like moose deer and maybe bears or the extremely rare manbearpig,and some refreshments like my new favorite of 44 North Huckleberry.

Sounds like a great excuse to get away from the cell phone, the city, make lifetime friends, exchange wisdom, and have a great time whether it is just me or a group of us. Perhaps even some presentations in front of a roaring campfire under the clear star filled sky.

Yes, a CAD Campfire does sound like the solution to the 7 year Between the Lines Anniversary. This could be fun, great for networking, and story telling!

As a follow-up to the posting How to Change the AutoCAD Layout Background Color earlier this week in response to a Twitter request. I showed how to change the Layout paper background color. But what if you just want a solid black background in Layout with no paper like Modelspace, here is the solution.

The AutoCAD 2011 default white Layout background with paper and printable area background.

If you want to change you AutoCAD Layout background color from the defaults go to Options>Display. Now uncheck the first four Layout Elements.

AutoCAD is one of the world’s leading 2D and 3D design applications known by almost every plant designer and engineer around the world. With powerful and flexible features, it is used extensively for a variety of general design and drafting purposes and also serves as the platform of choice for many plant industry design applications.

Create, modify, and manage piping and instrumentation diagrams. Built on the latest AutoCAD platform, AutoCAD P&ID is familiar and easy to use. Streamline and automate common tasks to boost productivity, and easily access component and line information while you work.

12 July 2010

I received a question on Twitter today asking how to change the AutoCAD 2011 background color of the Layout.

The default color of the paper in a Layout is white, but perhaps you would like it to blue or maybe black.

If you want to change you AutoCAD background colors from the defaults go to Options>Display> then select the Color button.

In the Drawing Window Color dialog you have complete control over the color settings of most everything in AutoCAD. For the Layout paper background select Sheet/Layout > Uniform Background and then set the color you want. from the default white.

Slightly related: If you want the old AutoCAD classic icons instead of the ribbon, change your Workspace to the AutoCAD Classic Workspace.

06 July 2010

There is a free technology preview of AutoCADDWG file viewing and editing made possible from your web browser utilizing a cloud of network computers and technology from Autodesk LabsProject Butterfly. You can easily view, edit, and collaborate with others without installing anything on your machine or those you share with. Just upload your DWG, DXF, JPG, PNG, or even a ZIP archive with external references (Xrefs). On July 1st there were many updates released to this web based Project Butterfly.

Butterfly now has a new and simpler way for sharing and co-editing (and with unlimited participants)

After a week off I return to check out the new Autodesk Labs technology Project Neon. Project Neon is a technology preview of rendering your AutoCAD DWG files on the cloud. The cloud is a network of distributed computers and shared resources on the web in this case one of the worlds largest clouds Amazon Web Services. Rendering an image from 3D geometry, textures, and lights can be one of the heaviest and longest tasks in AutoCAD or any CAD application due to all the heavy graphics computations to result in a rendered scene. Utilizing a network of computers over the web allows you to free your local desktop resources and allow a dedicated group of servers/processes do the work for you without your hardware being a concern or bottleneck in processing. There is also no need for a special operating system or version as that is all done on the cloud network, all you need is a DWG file and a web browser.

In a few painless steps you can take an AutoCAD DWG file with 3D objects and a light source defined and upload to the web, then sit back and wait for the email letting you know you can get your rendered image.

From this 3D model in AutoCAD, to this rendered image with lights and textures applied to the 3D model.

Now sit back and watch the spinning progress icon or get back to work on more exciting things like more design work or that World of Warcraft game until an email is sent to you with a link to the rendered image.

Here is an email notice I received of my completed render by Project Neon.

I have had some discussions on the direction this technology may be going and it is truly exciting.